


The Changeling

by FairyTrashMother



Series: Tales From The Edges of The Map [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anthology, Children's Stories, Gen, Short, Short Stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 23:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20317567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyTrashMother/pseuds/FairyTrashMother
Summary: A small collection of short stories I've written





	The Changeling

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these when I was in college, and I thought I should put them somewhere. I may or may not write some more as we go.

When I was a little girl my grandmother told me to always remember to be kind to the faeries in the bottom of the garden. I was a serious child and took a great deal of time pondering which bit was the top and which was the bottom, but it always made sense that they would hide where the cats couldn’t chase them, I decided that the bottom of the garden was the wild part. I guessed right.

That first Spring they were shy, nothing more than a whisper in the wind, but I always left them something pretty. I left them doll chairs and toothpicks to build their furniture. I left doll clothes, leaving stacks of cold, nude plastic dolls in my closet, hoping for more lively playmates to dress in those glittery clothes. 

Summer came and as the gifts disappeared, other gifts were left for me. Pretty necklaces made of flowers, wreathes for my hair. Bracelets of bluebells and ripe raspberries that tasted like the sun and the rain. I sang them songs and the birds sang with me, and I could hear them humming in the warm dizzy silences on those all too short summer nights. 

Fall came, and I left them little doll coats and shoes, and I gathered them acorns and apple slices, and I left them jars of jam for the winter. They left me wreathes of leaves and stacks of pretty stones that shone like they had been lovingly polished. 

By winter I was digging out the little clearing between hedges and lighting them little fires, leaving matches and dry twigs and thimbles of hot tea. By winter the gifts had stopped. I was afraid, so afraid that my friends had left me, that something had happened. But the gifts kept disappearing and I kept leaving them, because my grandmother had tole me to always remember. 

Spring came again and I shared my sweets and the doll furniture I was given for my birthday. The silence in the little clearing cut me to the bone, and I had to fight to not cry. My friends were nowhere to be seen, and I was sad now. I was alone. 

Spring passed into summer. It was a warm night, the sort they loved to dance on, when I heard them singing. So sweet they were, and they called my name! I dressed in my best party dress, I wanted to impress them so badly. I wanted them to love me again, I wanted them to never leave. I put the dried flowers in my hair and wore the dried wreathes and ran to dance with them. I ran to the bottom of the garden and I never noticed how wide the garden had grown, how green the grass here was. I ran barefoot and the dried flowers flew away on the breeze, so much flotsam from my old life. I laughed, and that was carried away too, the sounds of childhood and innocence.

They danced in a circle, so perfect in their petal skirts and the sequined dressed I left for them. Their toothpick throne is carved beautifully and smells of minty wax, and they toast me with their thimble cups. I danced that night with princes with viridescent wings, who dressed in the finest bumblebee hair velvets and ladies who flaunted their ranks with the dresses given to them by children who remember. I was swept away, for when you are with the fae you are who you are, and age never matters, and the whole wide world can rot, because you are who you are.

So remember dear. Remember the wild children of the short nights. Remember to leave them presents, and treat them kindly. Remember the old ways. And if you can find the prettiest flowers, if you are very lucky, maybe one of them will sing you songs and leave you a sequined dress as they did for me when I was young.


End file.
